NORTH CASCADES NATIONAL PARK, WASHINGTON STATE

The lower reaches of the Cascades never failed to impress James Kipper. Dropping his backpack for a five-minute rest and a drink of water, he rewarded himself for the morning’s trek with a moment staring down the long, deeply wooded valley up which he had climbed. Snow lay in patches along the well-beaten trail and dropped in wet clumps from the sagging branches of fir and pine which covered the gentle slopes below him in a dense green carpet. He loved it out here. Nature was so powerful, the hand of man so light, you could have been hundreds of years removed from the twenty-first century. The brisk but unseasonably sunny morning had made hiking up the remote valley a rare pleasure for the senses. The air was fragrant with sap and the rich, brown mulch of earth warmed by the sun for the first time in months. A breeze, just strong enough to set the treetops swaying, carried the natural white noise of a nearby stream, running heavy with an early melt. As he stood at the edge of a small plateau he could imagine the landscape below dotted with castles and mounted knights. As the father of a little girl just lately in school, knights and castles and fairytales were seldom far from his mind these days.

Kipper sucked in a draught of air so clean and cold it hurt all the way down into his chest. But it hurt good. The temperature hadn’t snuck much past the mid fifties but he was well dressed for the hike, and could even feel sweat trickling down the inside of his arms. Another mouthful of icy spring water added pleasantly to the discordant sensations of being both hot and cold in parts. His breath plumed out in front of him and his stomach rumbled, reminding the engineer that it had been four hours since his last substantial meal, a bowl of pork sausages and beans cooked over the coals at his camp site a few miles down-range. Kipper unzipped his Gore-Tex jacket and fished around inside for the protein bar he’d stored in one of the many pockets before setting out that morning. It would be satisfyingly warm and chewy by now.

He frowned at the buzzing in one of the pockets. A second later the trilling of his satellite phone punched him back into the real world. The phone was a concession to his wife, Barb. Three days a year he was allowed to run around the woods by himself, but as a former New Yorker, Barb had ‘issues’ with his ‘nature-boy shtick’, and insisted that if he was going to go commune with the elves he should at least take a sat phone and GPS locator with him. ‘So we can find your body, before the coyotes and buzzards are finished with it,’ she’d said.

He took out the heavy lump of hated technology, scowling at the small screen as he realised it wasn’t even her on the line. Judging by the number, the connection ran all the way back to City Hall.

Well, now I’m really pissed, he thought. Only his wife and the park rangers were supposed to have this number, and, true to her promise, Barb had never actually used it. But apparently she’d gone and given it to some pinhead at work. Unless of course it was telemarketers. Please God, don’t let it be telemarketers.

He was simultaneously dreading and relishing the prospect as he answered. If this was some asshole in New Delhi trying to sell him a time-share apartment…

‘Kipper, are you there?’

The chief engineer of Seattle City Council closed his eyes and exhaled. ‘Hey Barney. This better be good, man.’

Whoever had decided there was something worth interrupting his precious hiking holiday for had chosen the messenger well. Barney Tench was his closest friend and probably the only person who could call him right now, safe in the knowledge that he would survive the encounter.

‘It ain’t good, Kip,’ said Tench, and now Kipper noticed the tremor in his friend’s voice. Was he scared?

When Barney spoke again he sounded like he’d just survived a train wreck. Like he was terrified. ‘It’s fucked, man. Totally fucked. You gotta get back here right now. I know it’s your break and all, but we need you – right now.’

Kipper shivered as a single bead of sweat trickled down his spine before hitting a patch of thermal underwear and being absorbed. ‘What’s up, Barn?’ he asked. ‘Just tell me what’s going on.’

Tench groaned. ‘That’s it, Kip-nobody knows. Could be a war. Could be a fucking comet strike. We don’t know.’

‘A what?’

His surroundings were completely forgotten now. All of James Kipper’s attention was focused down the invisible connection to his friend and colleague back in the city. A friend who seemed to have lost his marbles.

‘What d’you mean “a comet or a war”, Barney? What’s going on?’

‘The whole country is gone, Kip. All of it, ‘cept us. And Alaska, I guess. Even Canada’s gone – most of it, anyway, in the east.’

The ice water he’d just swallowed was sitting very heavily in his stomach, as though he’d gulped down a gallon of the stuff instead of just a mouthful. That might have been anger – he was beginning to suspect this was some sort of prank. Tench was famous for them. When they were rooming together in college, he’d fabricated an entire gala ball at the Grand Hyatt, convincing a couple of college babes to hand out ‘free’, ‘strictly limited’ tickets on campuses all over town. They’d got as drunk as lords sitting in the foyer, dressed in rented tuxedos, watching hundreds of students waving their bogus ball tickets in the face of a bewildered hotel manager. Barney Tench was more than capable of fucking with someone’s head for a laugh. Especially Kipper’s.

‘Gone where, Barn?’ he growled. ‘You’re not making any sense.’

‘Just gone, Jimmy. Just fucking gone.’ His voice was scaling higher with every word he said. ‘Turn on your locator beacon. There’s a National Guard chopper headed your way soon. They’re gonna pick you up and transfer you to a plane somewhere. It’ll get you straight in here. Council’s called an emergency meeting. All heads of departments. Governor’s office is sending a team, although nobody can find Gary Locke. His schedule had him in transit today. In the air,’ he added, as though that explained everything.

‘Barney, is my family safe?’ asked Kipper.

‘They’re fine, buddy, they’re fine. Barb gave me your number. Look, I gotta go. The Guard can fill you in. I got a thousand calls to make now I found you. Just fire up that beacon, sit your ass down and wait.’

‘Bar-’

But the line cut out.

‘What the fuck was that about?’ he muttered. Shaking his head, Kipper knelt in front of his pack and popped the snap lock on the pocket containing his personal locator beacon, a small lightweight ACR Terrafix unit. He powered up the little yellow device and couldn’t help searching the skies, even though he knew his ride was probably still an hour away. Assuming it came at all, and Barney wasn’t now roaring with laughter, about to fall backwards off his chair. Who knew?

Sub-zero air torrents high above him stretched a few scraps of cloud into long white ribbons, streaming away towards the coast. He caught sight of a giant hawk as it dived into the valley, wings folded back.